A disorienting journey through the fog of dementia, where memory is not just lost but reshaped, and the terror lies not in forgetting — but in no longer recognizing the world that remembers you.

I was not prepared for “The Father.” That may sound like the prelude to an overstatement, but I mean it in the most intimate sense. I have watched many films about ageing, about illness, about loss. I have mourned characters, empathized with pain, and even, at times, cried. But I have never left a film feeling as if I had personally experienced a mental fracture—until The Father.

In one scene in the movie, Anthony (played by Anthony Hopkins with heartbreaking clarity) turns to a lady he should know but doesn’t. The lighting is still the same, the music is still playing, and the camera hasn’t moved, yet something is abruptly awry. No, it’s not a prank. It’s not a turn. It’s a crime. He and we have lost something. And at that point, The Father shows what type of movie it is: not a tale about dementia, but an experience of it via the senses.

Florian Zeller directed The Father, which is based on his play. The movie doesn’t only show us memory loss; it lets us experience it. The movie is like a hall of mirrors with no corners, a labyrinth where the exits change and the faces become blurry and change places. You fight it for a time. Then you quit trying to figure it out, just like Anthony. I believe it is the most dreadful surrender of all.

I watched The Father late at night, when the traffic outside had died down and the noises of home had faded. It was the ideal place to slowly, but surely, lose your sense of direction. The walls of my apartment started to seem too clean and too neat. Was that picture there the whole time? Did I forget to turn off the hallway light? Hadn’t I previously walked along this hall? That's what makes the movie so smart and vicious. It makes you a part of Anthony’s breakdown.

People are correct to admire Hopkins’ performance, but no amount of praise can describe how he balances being fragile and angry, confused and charming. This is not a picture of a steady deterioration. This is a man who is fiercely defending his dignity, despite the fact that reality is beginning to turn against him. One minute, he’s telling us funny anecdotes and jokes, and the next, he’s accusing his daughter of lying, stealing, and betraying him. But the daughter—who is she?

Anne is the one character we anticipate to be the constant, the emotional anchor. Olivia Colman plays her with painful reserve. But she also flickers. She sometimes thinks of moving to Paris. Occasionally she is already there. She might be an entirely different person at times. We believe her, then we don’t. Not because she is dishonest, but because we have been taken in by Anthony’s perspective, and in his mind, nothing remains the same. This narrative is so heartbreaking not only because it’s confusing but also because it plays on one of our most common and deepest fears: being alone.

It’s scary to not be able to trust your thinking. We build our identities over time by remembering people, places, and habits. What do you have left after you take them away? Perhaps it's an individual bearing the same name. The same body. But the ego, which is the unseen structure that says, “I know who I am because I remember who I was,” has fallen apart.

The movie gets this well. It doesn’t only take Anthony’s things out of his flat. It changes the wallpaper. It changes the order of the photographs. It changes performers in the middle of a scene. And through this, it teaches us a harsh lesson: memory isn’t a straight line of the past; it’s a weak structure that we build up moment by moment, breath by breath. And when that process fails, everything is up for grabs.

As the credits rolled, I thought of my grandpa. The guy who taught me chess used to be quite smart, but toward the end of his life, he couldn’t remember how to set up the board. At first, he thought I was his father, then he thought I was a stranger, and then he sobbed because he didn't understand why we were all in his home. My grandma, who was exhausted but devoted, assured him he was secure and that nothing had changed. But he knew something had.

He couldn’t put it into words, but he could feel it: the gap between the reality around him and the one in his head was becoming bigger. That’s what The Father does so well: it shows not just memory loss but also the dread of being incorrect. The feeling that you don’t fit in with the world, and worse, that the world is working against you, not because it hates you but because it doesn’t care.

Zeller leads with calm accuracy. His camera doesn’t yell. It watches. He gradually guides us through places that appear familiar at first but then don’t and persons who seem trustworthy at first but then don’t, and talks that go on and on like a dream right before waking up. It’s not showy. It’s not too dramatic. That restraint is what makes it so scary. The scary part is how typical it is to lose everything.

I recall, around midway through the film, there was a moment when Anthony panics because he cannot locate his watch. It was a simple moment, but it broke me. Not because of the watch, but because of what it means. The watch is what keeps him grounded. He still knows what time it is if he can locate the watch. He still knows how to organize things if he knows how to tell time. And if the order is still there, maybe he’s not going away. Perhaps he’s still real. But the watch is no longer there. Or maybe it is not. Or maybe he put it away and forgot about it. No matter what, the harm is done.

There is no hope left after The Father. This is not a story of redemption. There is no cure or release. What there is instead is truth. The type of harsh truth that movies don’t often show when they deal with being older or sick. In one of the last sequences, Anthony breaks down and cries like a kid in the arms of a nurse. “I feel like I’m losing all my leaves,” he adds. “The branches. The breeze. The rain. It is the most lyrical way to say you are powerless that I have ever heard. Hopkins gives it to you without being vain or egotistical. Just sheer, painful weakness. That’s when I lost it.

There are just a few times in movies when the line between performer and audience, or between performance and experience, is completely erased. That was one. Hopkins wasn’t simply a guy called Anthony in that moment. He was every parent, grandpa, and aged loved one who has ever been afraid of disappearing from their life.

I didn’t move for a few minutes after the movie was over. I sat there in the dark, not because I was thinking, but because I didn’t know how to go back to the actual world. I couldn’t trust my flat anymore. I had to look at my watch. Check out my calendar. Confirm who I was. That is the strength of The Father. You don’t watch it. You live through the movie.

I have only gone back to it once since then, and I was very careful. You shouldn’t suggest this movie lightly. You don’t say, “You have to see this.” You say, “If you’re ready, I have a movie to show you.” The credits don’t conclude the movie. It sticks with you. It makes you examine how you see things, not only how you see age or disease, but also how you see trust, identity, and the way your memory changes. It makes you think about what you owe to people who are forgetting and how much of yourself you’re ready to give up to keep in touch.

In Hollywood, memory loss is often considered either sad or nostalgic. We view old pictures, hear gentle piano music, and are supposed to feel sad about the individual who is leaving. But Zeller doesn’t like that idea. He lets us see the psyche of the person who is sliding. He lets us feel the hold becoming weaker. And by doing this, he provides the lost people their dignity back. He allows people to be more than simply a “burden” or a “patient.” He lets them be the main characters in their tale, even if that plot is falling apart.

I ponder a lot about how The Father would affect someone who is just starting to show signs of dementia. Would it feel like proof? Or would it hit too close to home? Maybe both. It is a mirror; however, it has a fracture in the centre. You can see yourself, but not clearly. Scary, yet familiar. Then I think of the caregivers—the sons, daughters, and spouses who have to listen to the same talks, answer the same questions, and deal with the same charges every day. This movie is an elegy for them. An acknowledgement. It serves as a way to express, “We see you.” We understand how difficult this is. We know how much it costs.

The Father is not a source of amusement. It’s not just art. It indicates that you care. There isn’t a significant statement at the conclusion or a major twist that makes everything clear. A guy is sitting on a chair and begging for his mother. And maybe that’s what finally shattered me. In our most lost and scared condition, we don’t seek reasoning or an explanation. We want to feel safe. We want to be hugged. We want someone, anybody, to reassure us that everything will be OK, even if it isn’t.

The Father is not merely about forgetting things. It is about how people need to be seen. To be known. To be important. And in a world that seems to be moving too quickly for anybody to remember us, that need has never been more important. We hope someone will remember the tree after the leaves fall. We hope that someone will still recognize the face after the name disappears. And when the door no longer goes to the chamber we thought it would, we hope—desperately—that someone will still be there to say, “It’s okay.” “You are not alone.”